There’s a lot stuffed into the grimy walls of Bad Times at The El Royale, the ensemble crime drama starring Jeff Bridges and Dakota Johnson, among others. When I say that, I mean it quite literally: Early on in the narrative, the viewer discovers that the motel, which straddles the California-Nevada border, is bugged to high heavens and filled with occasionally lucrative secrets.

But this is a mystery that’s not exactly a mystery. Director Drew Goddard — who made the twisty horror delightThe Cabin in the Woods — gives his audience all the information he believes is required to grasp the essential points, even if that means there are some lingering questions.

This is not the movie I was expecting. Where did this idea come from?Drew Goddard: I’ve always loved crime fiction and crime cinema. It’s been a genre I wanted to explore for a long time. I think I felt like I needed to reach a certain level of maturity before I tackled it because the danger when dealing with crime is you can get almost fetishtistic with it and become the very thing you are trying to criticize or critique. I think I needed to get a little older, quite honestly. I’ve always had in the back of my head the rough sketch of this idea. And then I reached a point around 2016 where it was time to put pen to paper, as they say.

You’re exploring the 1960s. What was it about the era and these archetypes — the cult leader, the girl group singer, the FBI man — specifically?Goddard: I suppose it was two things. For me, the ’60s have always been intoxicating to study and immerse myself in. I love the juxtaposition of the chaos that happened politically. You saw this real time of turmoil. In a five-year period this country watched JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy all get assassinated, in some cases on live television. You actually saw it. And then Richard Nixon took over. Which is fairly insane to think about today, something like that happening. Simultaneously you have this renaissance of pop music. Almost this beautiful birth of pop music in a way. I don’t think those two things are exclusive. I think this beautiful soul music came about because of the darkness these artists were experiencing. I’ve always loved that, and I thought that was fertile ground for story.